The 80’s horror films were defined by the slasher series. And there are two men who are highly responsible for that trend. John Carpenter ended the 1970’s with Halloween, clearly defining what these films would look and feel like for the next decade plus. Michael Myers took off, becoming horror icon, with 3 more direct sequels in the 80’s, inspiring 12 sequels and remakes in all, the last being Halloween Ends in 2022. Michael Myers is still very much in the Zeitgeist. Now Carpenter wasn’t involved as a director in any of the sequels, but he wrote part 2, and produced and scored many of the others.
In 1984 Wes Craven changed the genre forever, introducing us to Freddy Krueger, in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Again kickstarting a massive new franchise with 8 sequels staring the original Freddy, Robert England, and one remake with Jackie Earle Haley taking on the dream-stalking psycho. Craven like Carpenter didn’t direct many of the sequels, but came back and wrote and directed the 7th entry, in a New Nightmare. Bringing Freddy into the real world, and introducing us to meta-horror 2 years before he’d explode that idea with Scream in 1996, with 5 sequels of it’s own so far.

Today we’re going to look back at each of their careers, compare and contrast these masters of horror, and talk about their influence on the genre, and at the end, we'll declare a victor in Craven vs. Carpenter.

This video was made Southern Oregon based writer, director, editor, and Tongal creator, Ross Williams.

He's a filmmaker and Youtube creator, making short films, documentaries, music videos and video essays: / xrats

This video was created as part of Tongal’s YouTube Original Videos Project.————————————
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